The use of nail guns, such as pneumatic nail guns, is commonplace in the construction industry. Devices, such as the nails employed with nail guns are often provided in collated packets. Typically, pneumatic nail guns employ round-head nails or clipped-head nails in collated strips. The collated strip of nails set each nail at a specific angle relative to each other. The particular angle of collation varies depending on the type of nail being employed and enables functionality with the pneumatic nail gun within which the nails are used. Thus, it is often the case that particular collated nail strips are limited in their application to particular nail guns.
The collated nail strips are loaded into the nail gun through a nail loading assembly, often identified as the nail gun magazine. The nail gun magazine provides storage capabilities for the nails as well as the ability to present the nails to a nail driving assembly. The nail driving assembly of a pneumatic nail gun uses air pressure to drive a driver blade through a channel disposed within a nose casting, the nose casting being coupled with the nail gun magazine and is where an individual nail is presented.
The inside of the nail gun magazine typically includes a mechanism for providing a driving force to the collated nails. The driving force pushes the collated nails down the length of the nail gun magazine to the nose casting. The driving force keeps a constant pressure on the collated nails so that as one nail is driven by the driver blade the next nail is forced into the nose casting to replace it. The mechanism for driving the nails in the nail gun magazine is commonly fixed to provide the proper force only to nails of the proper collation angle. Thus, if improperly collated nails are loaded into the nail gun magazine, the driving force mechanism improperly engages the nails and results in a misfire. A misfire may result in damage to the nail gun and/or operator as well as a decrease in production and efficiency. Therefore, when operating a nail gun it is crucial to load the correct collated nail strip.
Typically, nail guns do not contain a mechanism for verifying the angle of the collated nails loaded into it. Further, in general, a device is not included within the magazine to block the loading of the nails from the magazine into the nose casting if the angle of collation of the nails provides nails at the improper angle. Thus, the primary method of preventing improper nail use is operator awareness. As such, the operator is required to be constantly aware of the type of collated nail strips being used. Due to the time being spent ensuring proper nail use, workplace productivity and efficiency may be decreased. Therefore, it would be desirable to design a nail gun which included a system which may increase the likelihood that the collated nail strip being loaded into the gun is the correct type for that particular nail gun.